Cellular motorola phone wallpaper

Byline: Kevin Fitchard

If ever there was a titan to inspire awe in its rivals in the handset industry, it's Nokia. More than any other wireless brand, the Nokia name is ingrained with the ideals of fashion, attitude and youth: While other manufacturers debut new phone models at trade shows, Nokia's latest designs first appear on the runways in Paris. And while other vendors start work on a new phone with an engineering schematic, Nokia's first blueprints are renderings on tracing paper from its L.A. studios - flights of artistic fancy created as pure design.

Nokia's competitors have long focused on the professional market, an audience that has been oh-so-lucrative for carriers and vendors alike. But vendors are getting wise. The ranks of phone-wielding businessmen and urban professionals are reaching saturation, and traditionally staid manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are beginning to look toward youth as the next big opportunity. And that means challenging Nokia's supremacy.

"In the past, we were admittedly more complacent when it came to making phones for fashion or targeting youth," said Matt Baker, Motorola's head of marketing for its North American personal communications division. "Nokia has always clearly been the one to beat, but until now we haven't risen to the fight. Nokia doesn't control the market entirely, though. There's going to be a dogfight."

In the last year, Motorola has released its fashion- and style-oriented V series in the U.S. Though not specifically targeted at youth, the colorful V-120 handset has been particularly popular among the country's younger classes since its debut with Verizon Wireless. This year, however, Motorola plans to release its V-330, the vendor's first handset targeted exclusively at youth. With screen wallpaper, downloadable ringtones, changeable front and rear faceplates and polyphonic speakers, the model is Motorola's first entirely customizable phone.

The V-330 isn't the end-all answer to Nokia's youth muscle, but it's a start. Motorola's new attention on the youth market encompasses focus groups, teen research studies and the willingness to take the buying power and consumer savvy of the nation's teenagers seriously.

"We can't slap on a different face to the business phone of three years ago and expect it to be a hit with the youth market," Baker said. "We have to offer a product that is not only highly individualized but also functional."

CDMA handset manufacturer Samsung is also taking its first careful steps into the youth market. While it has yet to release a specific youth-targeted phone, plans are in the works in Korea, where Samsung has a lock on all markets, young and old.

"It's not just the way it looks, it's also the way it sounds," said Randy Smith, vice president of marketing and business development for SamsungUSA's mobile division. "It has to be stimulating all around." While Samsung is exploring the usual faceplate and ringtone features, it also has its eye on more advanced multimedia functionality: MP3 players, color high-resolution screens supporting screen savers, and possibly video.

While those types of features may be far off - at least from an affordability perspective - Samsung isn't the only one that thinks entertainment might be the key to attracting youth. Wildseed, for example, is infusing multimedia and gaming content to mobile handsets by means of interchangeable "skins."

"It has to be new all the time," said Eric Engstrom, CEO of Wildseed. "It has to be able to play a new song, be a different color, play a different game. You can't just sell kids a phone and tell them that's what they have to live with. If they can't change it to suit their own needs, they won't want it."

For all of their differing perspectives, Engstrom and the big vendors are still focusing on the same idea: building phones around youth lifestyle. Lifestyle, however, is a gospel Nokia has been preaching for years. Ever since it released the interchangeable faceplate, Nokia has been cementing its reputation as the more youthful brand. Nokia acknowledges that its marketing has become much more than a product push - it's trying to paint an enduring image designed to keep customers loyal to the Nokia brand from adolescence to retirement.

"We're not advertising a particular model or particular features," said a Nokia spokesman. "It's all about the lifestyle of the phone."

Nokia may have the market nailed on its image of the mobile lifestyle, but as Engstrom pointed out, youth change their lifestyles often. What's cool and hip today becomes tired and boring tomorrow. Inversely, a tired and boring handset brand can become cool and hip in the blink of the eye.

"It's really up to us how we're perceived in the marketplace," Motorola's Baker said. "Give us some time, and we'll change that perception."